The Woods-Feynman Effect
by MollyBananahammock
Summary: "I know who Richard Feynman is... Leonard went as him for Halloween last year."


A/N: Happy Halloween guys! And here is a little Halloween themed one shot as a gift since I haven't done one in aaaaaaaages. Enjoy!

* * *

" _Jesus_ Leonard will you hurry up? You're worse than a woman!" Penny called out from the bottom of the hallway.

"I'm almost done!" Leonard called back, but Penny knew better than to believe him – he said the same thing half an hour ago.

It was hardly surprising. Leonard always got like this at Halloween. Using the creepy holiday as the perfect opportunity to really go all out in the nerd factor. Taking weeks to decide on the perfect costume, passing through a phase of desperately trying to get her to participate in some geeky couple's costume. All of which she'd so far refused. She would not be the Catwoman to his Batman, the Princess Peach to his Mario or the Rose to his Doctor Who. She had considered agreeing to being the Little Bo Peep to his Woody – purely because of his love for Toy Story and the soft spot she had for it too, but she tried on the dress and it was uncomfortable and bulky and unflattering she wasn't prepared to spend the entire night with her dress crashing into everything.

"Maybe next year," she would say to him after rejecting every idea he had and he usually made it a few months before beginning to hound her again about coming to comic-con with him and throwing all sorts of ideas about who they should go as. To his credit, he tried really hard to think up ones she'd agree to. Every year she'd think there can't possibly be anymore

costume ideas he hasn't already thrown at her and every year he comes out with some other obscure couplet. Almost always people Penny had never heard of and wouldn't dream of going as.

That was a general theme for Leonard's Halloween costumes – Penny usually hadn't ever heard of them before.

"Ready?" Leonard called out excitedly from the bedroom and, now sitting down on the sofa scrolling through her phone, Penny rolled her eyes.

"I've been ready for half an hour!" She grumbled back to him.

The bedroom door opened and closed and Penny heard Leonard's footsteps on the hallway floor before he reached the end and stood with his arms out, "What do you think?"

He had a triumphant grin on his face – obviously pretty pleased with himself – but, as usual, Penny had no idea who he was. She tried, as she always did, to rack the corners of her brain for who it could be, knowing the disappointed look he'd give her – the one he always gave her – when she didn't recognise it. It wasn't easy though, there's so many stupid shows that he watches and games he plays and people he likes, he could literally be anything!

And right now his costume was so… vague, that she honestly couldn't even guess. There was no colourful skin-tight suit that would suggest he was some superhero, no stick on pointy ears or long flowing capes or swords or distinctive face make up to give her some sort of clue. He'd grown his hair out a bit and left it down and sort of wavy, he was wearing a white shirt that was open at the first couple of buttons and a pair of slacks. He looked… normal. Something that wasn't usual for his costumes. The only thing that really stopped him from looking like a regular guy on the street was the rocket shaped thing under his arm that had a yellow and black fan shaped sticker on it.

"You don't know who I am do you?"

"Umm…." Penny tried hard to think, tilting her head to the side and narrowing her eyes as she thought, before – inevitably – throwing her hands up in defeat. "No. I have no idea. Who are you?"

"Oh no! No, no! Don't give up you can get this!" Penny highly doubted it and rolled her eyes, but played along anyway. "This, here," he said, holding out the rocket thingy, "is something I helped to create…" Penny screwed up her face. She didn't even know what that was, never mind who made the stupid thing. "It causes mass destruction…" Leonard added, as though that would clear it all up. "It's a bomb, Penny. The atomic bomb."

"Ohhhh right, yeah, okay."

"So that means I'm…."

"North Korea?"

He exhaled exasperatedly. "North Korea? Really?"

"What! I don't know, do I? I know they have nuclear bombs and stuff!"

"Yeah, but-"

"Yeah, I know," she rolled her eyes again, "you're _obviously_ not North Korea. I don't know who you are. No idea."

He looked a bit frustrated, but ploughed on regardless. "Okay. How about this – I'm a physicist… I won a Nobel Prize…" he raised up his eyebrows, urging her to get it, "Some people might call me a pretty _fine man_."

Penny knew the emphasis on those words meant they had some meaning, but still nothing came to her. She sighed, and in an effort to at least guess something, she said the first of the few scientists she actually knew, "I don't know… Stephen Hawking pre-wheelchair?"

The blank look Leonard gave her told her she was wrong – not that she didn't already know that. "Richard Feynman, Penny."

"Oh," Penny nodded, as though it all clicked in her head and now she recognised it – but she didn't. She couldn't even pick the man out of a line-up. "Okay, your turn!" She jumped up off the sofa and posed with her hands on her hips.

"Um…" Leonard gave her the exact same, scrunched up, confused face she was sure she'd given him only a moment ago, "Professor Umbridge?"

"What?" Penny was surprised by the guess, but upon looking down at her bright pink knee length skirt and blazer, and a slightly lighter shade of pink shirt, that was a pretty fair guess. "No. Think of the _blonde_ hair," she said, running a hand through her straightened blonde locks, "you definitely wouldn't find me out in the _woods_ …" She raised her eyebrows, much in the same fashion that he had when trying to spark something in his memory to figure out what she was getting at, "no?"

"Nope. Don't have a clue."

"I'm Elle Woods!"

He still looked confused.

"From Legally Blonde!"

"Oh. Oh, okay, yeah, the pink lawyer movie you make me watch sometimes."

Penny rolled her eyes and picked up the pink bag that had a white stuffed dog poking it's head out inside it, "Yeah, the pink lawyer. Now come on, we're gonna be late."

"Do you think anyone from your office will get it?" Leonard asked her in the car on the way there.

"Get what? Your costume?" Penny looked over at Leonard as if he was mad. "No, sweetie. No. This isn't one of your usual nerd parties, okay? This is a normal people party."

"It's going to be like that first Halloween party, isn't it? Where you dressed up as a cat and I was Frodo and no-one got it and me and the guys stood out like total dorks."

"Pretty much. Yeah." I smiled and took my eyes off the road to glance at the glum expression on Leonard's face. "Oh, don't be like that! I've gone to so many comic store parties for you. I've hung out with the nerds and stood there while a group of dudes dressed badly as Spiderman and Batman stared at me like they've never seen a woman before."

"I know, I know. I just always feel so out of place at these kinds of parties. Like everyone is staring at me."

"Your costume this year is pretty demure. If you'd come as that wizard guy with the long white hair then yeah- people probably would have stared."

"Gandalf?"

"That's the one. But you're that feyn… scientist guy and no one will even know who that is so they probably won't even notice you."

"Feynman."

Penny shrugged, "Whatever. I'm actually really excited about the fact you don't have some outrageous costume on or more make-up than me! It'll actually feel like a normal party for once."

With that and a quick squeeze of reassurance to Leonard's knee, he finally seemed to cheer up a little.

Which is just as well, because Penny really was looking forward to this night out. It wasn't very often that they went to things like this together – without the rest of the guys. It'd be nice to have Leonard to herself for once, to show him off to the people she worked with, to laugh at the faces of the guys in the office who'd been hitting on her since she started working there - completely ignoring the fact that she'd told them countless times she was married - when they saw that the guy she was with was someone they probably wouldn't ever have imagined. Someone that they couldn't beat because no matter how good-looking they were, they just couldn't match his intelligence and that always made guys like that uncomfortable.

"Don't worry, they're all going to love you. And even if they don't it doesn't really matter most of them are assholes anyway."

They arrived at Penny's office building a few minutes later and, taking Leonard's hand, she led him up to the floor where the party was being held.

It was a big enough room, one they usually used for team briefings and staff meetings, though now had all sorts of creepy decorations hanging from the walls and ceiling, cobwebs and spiders and skull heads and screeched and lit up when you walked past them. Tables and chairs had been cleared and they'd set up a pop-up bar area as well as a small DJ area in the corner.

"I don't see a TARDIS," Leonard said quietly to Penny as they walked into the room, "so I'm afraid it's already one-nil to the comic book store."

Her first instinct was to protest his comment, but then she remembered said TARDIS and all the fun they had inside it and could only agree. "I guess that's fair. Drink?"

"Yes please!"

They worked their way through the crowd, past vampires and clowns, footballers and topless firemen, nurses with their skirts a little too short, policewomen with their shirts a little too low cut and a Barbie stumbling around on her too-high heels. It reminded her of the kind of Halloween parties she used to go to before she and Leonard got together. The kind where the girls in their barely recognisable costumes hung in packs near the guys, pouting and posing their way until the man they have their eye on saunters over to them.

In a similar fashion to those parties she used to attend, the night didn't quite live up to expectation. The music was good, better than the comic book store's which she and Leonard agreed made the score one each, and while the alcohol flowed warmly around her veins, Penny danced amongst the crowd with her friends while Leonard tried desperately to explain who he was dressed up as to anyone who asked, all of them looking just as confused – if not more so – than they had before, just like Penny had told him would happen.

After a while the girls and guys that had come here alone (which was most of them) started to pair up and the party was less about a group of people having fun together and more like a group of people trying to score. Leonard never really got out of his uncomfortable phase despite how much he tried. This just wasn't his scene and after a while Penny came to realise this really wasn't her scene anymore either. She'd been excited about going to a proper party for once, but she had to admit (and she wouldn't dare to out loud) but the other nerdy parties were more fun.

The people here weren't her friends. Her real friends were at the comic book store eating snacks out of a death star chip bowl and playing the high striker carnival game with a replica of Thor's hammer. She knew this because the girls had been sending her Snapchat pictures of it all night. The costumes looked better there, too. In particular there was a person dressed in a Chewbacca outfit that she had the urge to hug, he (or she) just looked so fluffy! Whether that urge was down to the alcohol or not she wasn't sure (though it probably was).

There was also the whole thing of her boss being here. They got on pretty well, she's usually nice enough but ever since Penny had come in she'd felt slightly on edge, like she had to watch what she was doing because she'd have to face all these people at work in a couple of days. At the comic book store that wasn't really a worry she had. All her friends knew how she could get when she got drunk and the others she didn't really care about anyway.

"Hey, uh… what do you say we get out of here and go join the rest of the guys?" Penny asked, leaning a little on his shoulder with her hand while the other played aimlessly with the button on his shirt.

As soon as she said it she saw the glint of mischief in his eye. That look that told her he wasn't going to let this go easily. It was her who had insisted on coming here. It was she who had said she was sick of going to those nerdy parties that she had been to almost every year since they got together.

"Go?" Leonard asked, standing up straighter, as if leaving were the last thing on his mind when she knew that's all he'd wanted since they got here. "But we're having such a good time. Why would we go?"

"Shut up, you know you hate it here."

"I don't," he shrugged one shoulder, "this is… okay."

"Ugh stop it," Penny said, stomping one foot a little, "you do hate it, I know you do. You have nothing to talk about with a single person in here." She dropped her voice to whisper, "They're all assholes and you know it. Besides," she said, bringing her voice back to normal again, "Don't you want to be somewhere where they actually know what you've come as. And who the guy actually is."

Leonard laughed and sipped on his drink, "I would. But _you_ were the one that insisted on coming here."

"I know but-"

"But now you want to leave, because the comic book store throws better parties. Will we call it two-one?"

The smug look on his face was annoying and yet also sort of cute. But mostly annoying.

"That's not what I said. It just _happens_ that this party isn't _that_ good and the other party has that big hammer game and I wanna play! I know for sure I'll beat all those nerds at it."

Leonard laughed again, placed his drink on the table, picked up his bomb and said, "Okay, we'll go." Penny almost clapped in delight, "but you gotta admit that you love those nerdy parties."

"Never."

"Go on, admit it. I'll stop bugging you about couple's costumes if you do."

"You definitely won't." Penny said as they made their way out of the party, holding hands while clutching their props with the other.

"Okay no I probably won't. But now I know that you love those parties I feel like I'm getting closer to getting you to agree."

"You definitely aren't."

"Really? Even if I suggest that next year we go as Jon Snow and Daenerys?"

Penny's eyebrow hitched up a little. This was probably the best one he'd suggested yet. "Becoming the Mother of Dragons does sounds appealing… and you'd look pretty good as Jon Snow."

"Yes!" Leonard said triumphantly.

"Woah, calm down, I didn't say 'yes' yet!"


End file.
